


The Way You Laugh

by pepsicola



Category: South Park
Genre: F/M, Title is a lyric from "Our Song" by Taylor Swift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-27 19:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17772857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pepsicola/pseuds/pepsicola
Summary: Actions never go unnoticed.





	The Way You Laugh

“Heidi’s kind of a hoe.”

Clyde, his hand in Bebe’s as they walked down the sidewalk, gave her a sidelong glance. Her curly blonde hair blew lightly against her cheeks in the night breeze. “Is that a bad thing?” he asked.

Bebe laughed, her giggle silvery like bells. Clyde wished he could bottle up the sound so he could hear it always. “No, not at all. I mean, her and Kyle are absolutely adorable, but it seems like she’ll show up to school with traces of a hickey or a limp in her walk, if you know what I mean.”

Now it was Clyde’s turn to laugh, Bebe’s favorite sound. “I do know what you mean, cool beans. But hey, if their sex lives are wild, then let them have wild sex. As long as they’re using protection.”

“Something tells me they don’t use it all the time though. Considering the amounts of times Heidi’s asked for birth control in the past. Until she got some for herself,” Bebe mused.

“Do you think Kenny or Kyle have sex more often?” Clyde asked.

Bebe thought about it, swinging hers and Clyde’s joined hands. Kenny and Henrietta got together at the end of sophomore year. She was almost positive their first date was spent in either Kenny’s or Henrietta’s bed. Kyle and Heidi first did each other four months into their relationship. Heidi got so frazzled easily, making it easy to see the nights her and Kyle spent together. Bebe wouldn’t be surprised if Henrietta and Kenny were better at concealing it. She voiced her thoughts to Clyde. “Kenny and Henrietta,” she answered. “Kyle and Heidi are just innocently obvious about it. Kenny and Henrietta are the experts.”

Clyde agreed, “I think the same.” He stopped in front of her house, still on the sidewalk. He faced her, staring deeply into her eyes. He was doused yellow in the streetlights. He squeezed her hands. “Be my valentine,” he said.

Bebe faltered. “It’s February first,” she told him.

“I know. I just wanna make sure that nobody else gets the chance to ask you before I can. And I’m trying to make this as close to ‘Prom Song Gone Wrong’ as possible.”

As realization dawned on her, she beamed, squealing and bouncing up to throw her arms around his neck. “Oh, sweet pea, I love you so much! Of course.” Just like the song, she felt so happy that she felt she really might die. She’d never had a love like Clyde before. When they reconnected in freshman year after her ex boyfriend tried to have sex with her, she realized that there was no one else she could imagine herself with. She realized she wanted her future to be with him. Only him.

Clyde embraced her, peppering her face in kisses.

“Bebe!”

She turned in his arms, seeing her dad in the doorway of her house. “Say goodbye, sweetheart. We have church in the morning since we can't go Sunday, and it’s past eleven,” he said.

“Okay, Dad,” she called to him. Turning back to Clyde, she planted a kiss to his lips and whispered, “Goodnight. I love you, sweet pea.”

“Love you too, cool beans.”

Bebe went into her house. As she walked past her dad, he said to her, “You’re going to marry him, right?”

She laughed. “Yep.”

“Good. I like that boy.”

“Me too.”

She walked up the stairs to her room. She didn’t realize how exhausted she was. She’d been up since five doing her makeup, which was only a quick thing of foundation, winged eyeliner, and red lipstick. She drove to Tweek Bros to get a muffin and coffee for breakfast, she picked up Wendy, Heidi, and Annie, then she had her six classes which were mostly electives. Then doing homework with Wendy in the library after school, and at six she had to babysit last minute for three hours while the kid’s parents were out visiting a family member in the hospital. And, finally, what she’d been looking forward to all day: her froyo date with Clyde. But since her schedule had been so busy, the place had already closed, so they sat in the parking lot of a McDonald’s sipping strawberry banana smoothies, watching YouTube on Clyde’s phone.

She pushed open the door to her room, about to collapse on her bed and fall asleep instantly when she noticed the bouquet of red roses sitting at the foot of her bed. She picked up the small notecard sticking up from the center of the bouquet, reading:

_"Our song is a slamming screen door,_

_Sneaking out late tapping on your window,_

_When we’re on the phone and you talk real slow,_

_Cause it’s late and your mama don’t know,_

_Our song is the way you laugh,_

_The first date man I didn’t kiss her and I should have,_

_And when I got home, before I said amen,_

_Asking God if He could play it again.”_

It suddenly all clicked in her brain. Her endlessly busy day pushing back her date with Clyde.

“ _I was walking up the front porch steps after everything that day,_

 _Had gone all wrong, had been trampled on and lost and thrown away…_ ”

Her walking into her room, ready to fall asleep.

“ _Got to the hallway well on my way to my lovin’ bed..._ ”

And the roses and the note.

“ _I almost didn’t notice all the roses,_

 _And the note that said..._ ”

The note that jumped into the chorus of the song. Just like this note in her palm did.

Bebe’s face broke into a bright grin. She hugged the note to her chest, picturing Clyde in her mind, going out of this way for her. There was no way that boy was ever going to get away from her. She was going to put a ring on his finger, whether he wanted it or not.

She called out her door to her dad downstairs, “Dad, did Clyde happen to come by at all earlier today to drop off roses?”

He called back up, “Yes. At around five, I think.”

She squealed, going back to her room and falling onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling. She didn’t realize she was singing “Our Song” until she sang, “ _And you talk reeeaalll slow._ ”

She giggled, facepalming. She would have to make this up to Clyde tomorrow. And she had just the idea.

 

Bebe showed up at the Donovan household at lunchtime after church the next day. She rapped her knuckles on the door, waiting patiently for it to open. When it did, Cartman stood in front of her. He nodded, as if understanding what she hadn’t even said yet. “Clyde’s up in his room,” he said.

“Uh, thanks,” she said. She walked past him, starting up the stairs. “Hi, Butters.” She waved to him on the couch.

He smiled and waved back.

She found Clyde at his desk, doing his math homework. She leaned against his side, looking down at the problem he was stuck on. He put an arm around her waist. She pointed to his work, saying, “You lost the negative.”

“Ugh, shit,” he swore. He erased the work leading up to his mistake. He fixed it and redid the problem. He looked up at her for conformation.

“Yeah. That’s the answer I got.”

He smiled, kissing her wrist. “Thanks, cool beans. But what brings you here? I didn’t get a text from you.”

She sat down on his lap, putting her arms around his shoulders. She stared into his amber brown eyes. “Since we missed out on our froyo date, why not go today? I wanna make it up to you as a thank-you for the roses.”

His smile got a little bit brighter. “I’m sure you got the reference?”

“Sweet pea, you’re talking to a Taylor Swift enthusiast. Of course I got the reference.”

“Should we go _now?_ ” he asked.

“It’s probably best.”

They made their way back downstairs, but not before Bebe stole Clyde’s letterman jacket of the back off his chair. It was her favorite jacket of his to steal.

As always, Clyde held open the door for her, and as always, she felt herself melt a little. In the car, he put in the Taylor Swift CD he always kept in the car just for her. They sang with the windows down the whole drive.

They got to the yogurt place with no issue at all. It was like the world wanted them to have a perfect day. Bebe’s favorite flavor was always strawberry. Clyde always got a little bit of each flavor, whether he liked it or not. “It’s about the experience, cool beans,” he’d told her once.

They sat at a round table for two next to the window after they found their flavors and piled it with toppings. Bebe’s favorite toppings were chopped peanuts and M&M’s. Clyde’s favorite toppings were all of them.

“Thank you for the roses,” Bebe said to him. “And everything else you do for me. Like tie my shoes.”

“Of course. I love you, don’t I?” he said, shoveling a spoonful of chocolate, mango, and red velvet with Sour Patch Kids and sprinkles into his mouth. His face screwed up in disgust, then smoothed out, then screwed up again. He shook his head, swallowing his bite. “Nope. This ain’t it, chief.”

Bebe laughed. She loved Clyde and everything about him, but her favorite thing was how he could make her laugh with every little thing he did. “That meme is dead and gone,” she said.

“I know. But, hey, maybe I’ll be the one to revive it.”

She rolled her eyes, taking a bite of her strawberry frozen yogurt. “I love you, dummy,” she sighed.

“I love you too, dork.”

Clyde leaned over the table to kiss her, and Bebe could taste every flavor of the frozen yogurt place on his tongue.


End file.
